Smart ManufacturingEnsuring effective ROI for manufacturers

text:
Suchi
Adhikari

Oct 20, 2017

The Ethernet POWERLINK Standardization Group and A&D India recently organised the Smart Industry Conference, in partnership with HMS India, Utthunga Technologies, Ascent Intellimation and B&R Industrial Automation at Pune. The conference had a discussion on how digital transformation ensures an effective ROI for manufacturers. A report...

The second half of the Smart Industry Conference kicked off with the second panel discussion, which focused on how digital transformation ensures an effective ROI for manufacturers. The panelists of this discussion were Rushendra Babu Guntur, Director-Engineering Solutions, Utthunga Technologies; Rajalakshmi Hegde, Sales Head—Pune, B&R Industrial Automation; Santosh Tatte, Country Manager, HMS India and Sujata Tilak, Managing Director, Ascent Intellimation. The discussion was moderated by Megha Roy, Assistant Editor, A&D India.

Addressing the concern of a lack of clarity on ROI for manufacturers, Tilak stated that in most cases, there is no single formula for calculating ROI. She explained, “Companies need to define what they want to do after analysing where they are today. They need to set a baseline or benchmark and then, take steps for improvement to reach the desired level. Adopting digitalisation will show you where you are currently and give you the tools for improvement. Thus, you must set up this system properly so as to achieve the goals.” She added that the outcome of this system must be monitored and this analysis will guide and direct towards the next steps to be taken to further implement improvement strategies and take the production efficiency to the next level.

Also elaborating on this was Hegde who suggested that manufacturers can adopt a time-based and condition-based management approach in order to meet the ROI objectives. “There are phase implementations through which we can learn to provide IoT solutions and achieve the required ROI,” she stated.

Tatte further shared his insights on the strategies adopted by his company and urged manufacturers to spend a lot of time at the very start in analysing if the digital solutions chosen by the company will address the specific targeted challenges. Babu informed that the digital system is constantly educating on-the job and organisations must include training programmes to upgrade the workforce. Stating the advantage of the digital process, he further added that IoT not only runs, but also points out the errors of the process so that it can be rectified.

Key takeaways…

The second discussion stated that to achieve an effective ROI, manufacturers must address the pain points in the particular sector and set-up respective benchmarks so that they can pave a roadmap for implementing improvement strategies and, thereby, achieve the desired result.